1[[Preface]]
2["preface",id="Preface"]
3== Preface
4
5[[PreForeword]]
6
7=== Foreword
8
9Wireshark is the world’s foremost network protocol analyzer,
10but the rich feature set can be daunting for the unfamiliar.
11This document is part of an effort by the Wireshark team to improve
12Wireshark's usability.
13We hope that you find it useful and look forward to your comments.
14
15[[PreAudience]]
16
17=== Who should read this document?
18
19The intended audience of this book is anyone using Wireshark.
20
21This book explains all of the basic and some advanced features
22of Wireshark. As Wireshark has become a very complex program,
23not every feature may be explained in this book.
24
25This book is not intended to explain network sniffing in general and it
26will not provide details about specific network protocols. A lot of
27useful information regarding these topics can be found at the Wireshark
28Wiki at link:{wireshark-wiki-url}[].
29
30By reading this book, you will learn how to install Wireshark, how to use the
31basic elements of the graphical user interface (such as the menu) and what’s
32behind some of the advanced features that are not always obvious at first sight.
33It will hopefully guide you around some common problems that frequently appear
34for new (and sometimes even advanced) Wireshark users.
35
36[[PreAck]]
37
38=== Acknowledgements
39
40The authors would like to thank the whole Wireshark team for their assistance.
41In particular, the authors would like to thank:
42
43* Gerald Combs, for initiating the Wireshark project and funding to do this
44  documentation.
45
46* Guy Harris, for many helpful hints and a great deal of patience in reviewing
47  this document.
48
49* Gilbert Ramirez, for general encouragement and helpful hints along the way.
50
51The authors would also like to thank the following people for their helpful
52feedback on this document:
53
54* Pat Eyler, for his suggestions on improving the example on generating a backtrace.
55
56* Martin Regner, for his various suggestions and corrections.
57
58* Graeme Hewson, for many grammatical corrections.
59
60The authors would like to acknowledge those man page and README authors for the
61Wireshark project from who sections of this document borrow heavily:
62
63* Scott Renfro from whose `mergecap` man page <<AppToolsmergecap>> is derived.
64
65* Ashok Narayanan from whose `text2pcap` man page <<AppToolstext2pcap>> is derived.
66
67[[PreAbout]]
68
69=== About this document
70
71This book was originally developed by mailto:{wsug-author-email2}[Richard
72Sharpe] with funds provided from the Wireshark Fund. It was updated by
73mailto:{wsug-author-email3}[Ed Warnicke] and more recently redesigned and
74updated by mailto:{wsug-author-email}[Ulf Lamping].
75
76It was originally written in DocBook/XML and converted to AsciiDoc by
77Gerald Combs.
78
79[[PreDownload]]
80
81=== Where to get the latest copy of this document?
82
83The latest copy of this documentation can always be found at
84{wireshark-users-guide-url}.
85
86[[PreFeedback]]
87
88=== Providing feedback about this document
89
90Should you have any feedback about this document, please send it to the
91authors through mailto:{wireshark-dev-list-email}[].
92